Before reading chapter 5 regarding video game aesthetics, I thought aesthetics of video game are limited to audio and visual elements. However, as Nielsen suggests, aesthetics in video game refer to "all aspects of video games which are experienced by the player" including indirect features such as rules and all apsects of game design such as game play, balance, geography and representation, what perspective is used, and what dimension forms the game. Rules are very important aspects in gameplay since without rules, there aren't any defined objectives to the game. Unlike how people usually think sets of rules as "bad, constaining, or a burden", Nielsen suggests rules are very important because rules are "what challenge us in the game world, they are what enable us to feel satisfaction we win". I do agree with his statement and it is impossible to think of playing any form of game without rules. Nielsen also talks about types of rules suggested by various theorists such as Frasca, Juul, and Salen and Zimmerman. However, he concludes that "we are free to employ whatever typology is the most useful", and argues that "interplay rules" and "evaluation rules" are two typles of rules that are important to distinguish. Nielsen also argues that gameplay is usually considered "a consequence of the game's rules rather than its representation".
Game balance is also important in aesthetics of video game. Balance can be both related to in-game balance and player-player balance. Determining who wins tha game relies on player skill and luck, but game's initial conditions that is set by game designer is very important aspect. In a more complexly designed games such as RTS games such as Warcraft and Age of Kings, there are different races selectable in the beginning and each race has different structures and units, thus it is harder to balance out inital conditions. For example, In Warcraft, the Orc player producing warlock units will almost always wins that breaks the balance between Human and Orc races. This is related to the term "dominant strategy" which refers to "a strategy that simply is the best one to choose, regardless of what the other players are expected to do". Thus, maintaining balance in gameplay for each selectable race/options is very important in the player's postivive game experience. One of the most popular modern RTS games is Starcraft. In South Korea, Starcraft is still one of the most played games (for last 10 years). The success of Starcraft comes from the well-maintained balance in three races. The success of MMORPG game World of Warcraft also comes from good balance between all selectable characters. Of course, time to time, there are certain character better than others, but continuous attempt from the designer of the game to reach equilibrium in balance (through updates) provides unique experience to each character, not making one character far better than others.
Nielsen also discusses on geography and representation aspects of video game aesthetics. This aspect is more closely related to visual elements of the game such as which perspective the game uses (FPS or TPS), what dimension is the game in (2D or 3D), what space type the game uses, etc.
Which aspect do you consider more important in playing video game, rules and balance (indrect) or audio and visual (direct)? Why do you think your choice is more important than the other?
I think all the aspects are important to game, for example, even if a game is well-made with rules, graphic, and sound system, but not well-balanced, gamers easily get angry at many stuffs, such as player, equipment, items, and monster. They would find the game very boring, and unfair to keep playing. so once again, there is no specific aspect more important than the other aspect. All the aspects should be made well at the same time in a game.
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